Nicolás Maduro affirmed this Wednesday that Venezuelan intelligence and counterintelligence defeated an alleged US CIA plan that, he claimed, consisted of attacking US vessels in Trinidad and Tobago, where Donald Trump’s government ordered military exercises.
“The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) itself, with all the evil that characterizes it, was going to attack the United States’ own ships. And who were they going to blame? (…) And why were they going to blame Venezuela? To justify an escalation and a confrontation between brother peoples,” said Maduro during a visit to a sector of the largest neighborhood in the country and in Latin America, Petare.
In a broadcast on the state channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), the Chavista leader reported on the arrest of “mercenaries”, without specifying a number, who – he assured – “have declared everything” and also mentioned the capture of new people in the east of the country, without providing more information on the matter.
The president spoke about “good neighborliness between neighboring countries,” in reference to Trinidad and Tobago, located just 11 kilometers from the nearest coast of Venezuela, but mentioned that “imperialism” “sows weeds, intrigue and hatred” to make neighboring peoples who have “coexisted in peace” “fight.”
Last Sunday, Venezuela denounced a “military provocation” by Trinidad and Tobago “in coordination” with the CIA to “instate a war” in the Caribbean, a region where the North American country maintains a naval and air deployment considered by Caracas as a threat to promote a “regime change.”
In a statement shared by the executive vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, the Maduro Executive warned about “the dangerous carrying out of ‘military exercises’ by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago between the 26th and 30th of this month, under the coordination, financing and control of the Southern Command” of the United States, in the island country, where the US Navy destroyer USS Gravely arrived last Sunday.
Furthermore, Rodríguez reported on the arrest of “a mercenary group with direct information” from the CIA, with which, he assured, it was possible to “determine” that a “false flag attack was in progress from waters bordering Trinidad and Tobago or from Trinidad or Venezuelan territory itself,” and that it had the objective, he warned, of generating “a military confrontation.”
For its part, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Trinidad and Tobago denied that the military exercises being carried out these days by the US Navy in its territory against drug trafficking in the Caribbean are intended to provoke hostilities against Venezuela.
